These teachers were recruited through the 2016 selection process, based on the Teacher Eligibility Test (TET) of 2014, but later their appointments were cancelled by a single judge.
KOLKATA: The Calcutta High Court will hear a very important case on April 28, 2025. This case is about the termination of jobs of around 32,000 primary school teachers in West Bengal.
These teachers were recruited through the 2016 selection process, based on the Teacher Eligibility Test (TET) of 2014, but later their appointments were cancelled by a single judge.
The matter was mentioned on Monday, before a division bench of Justices Tapabrata Chakraborty and Partha Sarathi Chatterjee.
Chief Justice T.S. Sivagnanam had assigned the case to this bench after another division bench had released it.
“The appeals by the West Bengal Board of Primary Education and others, including some of those who were recruited, challenging the termination of jobs of primary teachers by a single bench, will appear before it on April 28 for hearing.”
Earlier, on April 7, another division bench of Justice Soumen Sen and Justice Smita Das De had released the matter from their court list, stating:
“personal reason”
After releasing the matter, that bench directed the case to be placed before the Chief Justice for re-assignment to a different bench.
The whole issue started when Justice Abhijit Gangopadhyay, a single bench judge of the Calcutta High Court, had passed an order on May 12, 2023, cancelling the appointment of around 32,000 teachers.
The Supreme Court of India has intervened in a contentious case involving the recruitment of primary school teachers in West Bengal, leading to a stay on proceedings before Justice Abhijit Gangopadhyay of the Calcutta High Court. This case, which has seen multiple rounds of litigation, underscores the complexities and challenges in the Indian judicial system, particularly in matters of public recruitment and legal oversight.
Hearing an appeal in the recruitment scam matter, a bench of Justices Abhay S Oka and Ujjal Bhuyan sought the response of the Central and West Bengal governments and passed the following direction,
“Permission is granted to file Special Leave Petitions. Issue notice returnable on 15th March, 2024 … In the meanwhile, proceedings of WPA No.18726 of 2023 along with the matters connected therewith before the learned single-judge will remain stayed”
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These candidates were recruited in 2016 as primary teachers in government and government-aided schools, even though they had not completed the required teachers’ training course at the time of their recruitment.
Later, a division bench of the Calcutta High Court had stayed Justice Gangopadhyay’s order, meaning that the teachers were temporarily protected from losing their jobs.
